The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

  • 20 x 20 undefined
  • US dollars

$3,300

US dollars

This watercolor focuses on one of the sculpted heads along the roofline of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The Fifth Avenue facade was designed by Richard Morris Hunt, who died in 1895 shortly after completing his plans and never saw it built. His son, Richard Howland Hunt, oversaw the completion of the central entrance block in 1902. Hunt had envisioned the facade in white marble, but Indiana limestone was ultimately used. Seen from the sidewalk far below, the head registers as a pale shape against the open sky. Late-afternoon light moves across it from one side, warming the stone and separating the face from the palmette behind it. The tight framing brings this distant architectural detail into direct view, giving the face a presence of its own. The head recalls the ancient tradition of the antefix — an ornament set along a roofline, often combining a face with a palmette. Greek and Etruscan temples were lined with them, the same face repeated the length of the roof so it could be read from the ground. Several terracotta examples sit in the museum's own galleries. The building carries the same idea along its roofline, in limestone, centuries later. * Framing: Framed; frame not shown * Room view: For scale and presentation only

February, 2011
Watercolor painting
Effigy, Landmark, Building, The Met
  • US dollars

$3,300

US dollars

Other work